Marriott Minneapolis West - St Louis Park

We arrived mid afternoon in Bloomington. We passed the Mall to go register at our hotel. We stayed at Staybridge Suites just west of the Mall. It is a super nice place and they offer a full breakfast in the morning. Also every room is a suite with a ...

... we had to weave through the other drivers. We met Aleen for dinner at Trieu Chau, a local Vietnamese restaurant in St. Paul. I ate Bun Rieu while Susan had Bun Bo Hue and Aleen ate the vegetable soup. We made it to Hung and Lien's at 8:30 PM exhausted but ready to see what Minneapolis has to offer since this is our first time to go sightseeing here.

We will be seeing the Mall of America...

I'm frantically trying to work through my 3 page list of things to do before I go. Setting up a travel blog was one of the things on my list. Hopefully this will work as a great way to share stories and photos will all our friends and family back home. This seems pretty easy so far. My next task is a little more complicated...buying another swim suit. Why did I wait until 48 hours before departure to tackle this monumental task?

Off to MOA!

Mary

I have recently become afflicted with pre-travel jitters. Passport and tickets are all ready, bags are cleaned and ready, but there is one problem...

How do I manage to fit ALL of this stuff into a carry-on?

I will have to bring not only professional dress, but also casual and a formal outfit. Not to mention shoes! This and my papers and my toiletries and all these things ...

... me a quick tour of downtown and uptown Minneapolis. See photos.

I will be leaving again this week for Independence, Missouri, where I will be speaking and signing books at the National Frontier Trails Museum. That particular day at the museum is expected to be a great turn-out, and a fun day.

... Iowa. MSP is designed somewhat like the Denver airport. The terminals are away from the parking and rental car pickup area. You take a tram a short distances from the terminals to the rental car pickup area. We had checked in on line for our car pickup so we could bypass the car rental counter and walked directly into the car pickup area. Alamo touts the fact that you can pick any car in the class that your rental is for. We were shown the row with ...

... I'm not going to reach my goal but at this point I will do just about anything besides stealing or selling myself.... maybe. If you haven't donated already or would like to donate a little more to help me reach my goal, my direct link is: aidswalknewyork2009.kintera.org/bryanta ylor. I will try to keep future blogs short so you actually read them but no promises. This is more of a test run. Take care and "see you" in two days!

... Dad's signature Bloody Mary that all seem to enjoy but me.   The whole group got to hear the story of Kia and I surprising the 'rents when I came home.  Seriously, I have no idea how many times that story was told!!!!  Dawn and Steve Vaerst drove over and it was great to visit with them-thanks for taking the time. :-) By 7:00pm, I was ready for bed so that's what I did!!!!  Good night.

Hello, all, I'm sorry that I haven't written in a terrible amount of
time, nor did I post the photos I promised I would.

BUT,
now I have gotten it together and made two albums. It's hard to try and
distill 1245 photos into 120, but I think I did ok, if you have any
questions or want to see a different photo, email me at ...

That is what greeted me as I entered the gate area, where everyone was preparing for the first non-stop flight to Paris on Northwest Airlines. I admired the ice replica, and noticed that they had every facet and detail chiseled into the ice perfectly. Northwest airlines went all out for this one. All the news channel were there to cover the ribbon ...